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A "Walter Mitty fantasist" led police on a two-year wild goose chase spanning three countries by creating an "extraordinary web of lies" to avoid answering an allegation of speeding, a court heard.

Christopher Henry was alleged by police to have been caught breaking a 30mph limit in his ex-wife's Land Rover Freelander but refused to accept the ticket and went to extreme lengths to avoid answering police requests to identify the driver.

First, he intercepted the initial paperwork for the fine addressed to his former spouse, returning it to police claiming a Frenchman called Grevin Musee was the new registered owner of the vehicle.

The Musée Grévin is a popular wax museum in Paris and the address Henry gave for this invented name was at a hotel near the museum.

When police redirected the fine to the new address in the French capital, Henry was able to intercept this too, this time writing back to say it was another made up driver.

The documents were returned to police saying George Harris from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides was the driver responsible, but when officers found no trace of either man, Interpol were called in.

Interpol agents made the link to the wax museum, and after calling the post mistress on the Isle of Lewis, she had no knowledge of a Mr Harris and the speeding fine circled back to Henry.

Fingerprints on the documents matched Henry's and police obtained recordings of him calling the AA on two separate occasions when he broke down in the Freelander.

The 52-year-old was jailed for 12 months on Wednesday and a judge described him as a "fantasist akin to Walter Mitty" - a character who first appeared in The New Yorker in 1939 and was synonymous with flicking from one personality to another in a life of vivid fantasy.

The image taken allegedly of Henry speeding in his ex-wife's yellow Land Rover Freelander dated February 2, 2016

Henry, from Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, provided false dates of sale to the DVLA, set up a false email address and doctored emails from insurers all in an effort to cover his tracks.

A jury took just 40 minutes to convict him in his absence of three counts of perverting the course after he had denied all charges at Winchester Crown Court, where his "extraordinary web of lies" were laid out, according to the CPS.

At a previous hearing, he was fined £1,600, disqualified from driving for three months and given six points for failing to provide information.

A Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said: "From claiming a Frenchman with the same name as a famous wax museum in Paris was driving, to doctoring documents, to blaming a second mystery man in the most northern part of the British Isles, Christopher Henry went to extreme lengths to dodge the alleged speeding offence.

"Despite all his efforts to avoid justice, the dedication and determination of a Hampshire officer has finally seen the 52-year-old behind bars following a two-year investigation."

Henry, of Church Road in Weston-on-the-Green in Oxfordshire, is understood to be in the consultancy trade.